


You'll be Great

by Josie



Category: NewS (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josie/pseuds/Josie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Koyama Keiichiro was always told he would be great some day, even though he could never bring himself to worry about his own success. He never believed he could be great, but he knew he could do his best to make everyone else great. And really, is there anything wrong with being selfless?</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll be Great

**Author's Note:**

> Written for JE Squickfic 2013. I must thank the variety of people who have translated/subbed the things I used heavily to write this fic with, including Koyama’s 10000 word interview and SCP talk, as well as Tegoshi’s SCP talk and various other things. I couldn’t have written this without having those things to take information from. Apologies for the sometimes slightly screwed up timeline of events, it’s hard to write something spread over so many years without making a few allowances!

“Kei-chan. Kei chan, wake up Kei-chan.”  
  
Koyama Keiichiro stirred a little in his sleep as he heard the obnoxious voice saying his name over and over again. It was a voice he’d heard many times before whether he wanted to or not, but right now it felt like bullets continually being shot into his skull. His head hurt.  
  
“Tegoshi, I’m trying to sleep,” he murmured sleepily, and tried to turn over. He reached up one arm to grab for his pillow to put over his head because Tegoshi wasn’t the kind to give up, and his voice didn’t seem to be going away so this seemed like the the best way to solve the problem. When he raised his arm though he found something was stopping him from moving it all the way. Something that  _hurt_.  
  
“You shouldn’t do that, Kei.” Another voice. This one was Shige’s.  
  
“Why are you all in my room…” he murmured in frustration, trying to search in his weary mind for what reason there might be for those two being here. “Am I late for something…?” he asked unsurely, and then it hit him.  _That meeting._  “The meeting…” he spoke out loud, not able to get the urgency he was feeling in his mind into his voice.  
  
“The meeting is off.” A third voice. Low, and straight to the point. Massu’s voice. “Don’t listen to Tegoshi. Go back to sleep.”  
  
He opened his eyes half-lidded and saw a bright light shining down on his face. He blinked once, and then seemingly took his group mate’s advice and drifted off to sleep again.  
  
It was 8am, and outside the hospital reporters were beginning to gather.   
  
Inside the hospital, a man was delivering a stack of newspapers to the waiting room to keep those waiting to be seen entertained. The headline on the front page of the papers was  **NEWS’ KOYAMA KEIICHIRO RUSHED TO HOSPITAL. REPORTS SUGGEST HE COLLAPSED IN HIS APARTMENT AFTER AN OVERDOSE, AND WAS DISCOVERED BY NEWS MEMBER KATO SHIGEAKI.**  
  
  
 _There was a nervous buzz around the room as students filed in to get the the important results that would decide their future. One boy stood, clutching an envelope between his fingers, palms sweating with nervousness as he headed back out of the school to meet with his mother, promising they would open it together.  
  
Some people didn’t seem nervous, he thought. Perhaps they knew they had worked hard and knew they would have the results, but he had spent his three years at Junior High School following along with his friends, helping them out instead of working on his own, and he was sure he didn’t have the results he needed to get into that High School he had been hoping for.  
  
He slipped into the car beside his mother, and showed her the sealed envelope.  
  
“Open it,” she told him softly but firmly.  
  
The boy hesitated before tearing open the seal at the top of the envelope, and reaching inside, pulling out the slip of paper. His palms were sweating as he unfolded it and he and his mother both looked at the paper together.  
  
Then, his mother gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
The boy didn’t even see the actual grades on the paper. All he saw was his name and the word, failure’, as if it were written across the page in huge red letters. He wasn’t worried. He was just angry with himself._  
  
  
“Koyama Keiichiro. Group F.”  
  
Koyama’s heart sank. He had seen enough Fs in his life so far to know that it certainly wasn’t a good thing, and as he sidled over to a group of other nervous looking boys, he wondered what would happen to him if he couldn’t even make this work.   
  
“We’ll be fine~!” he told the rest of his group confidently, if only to make them feel better, but underneath he was wondering what the future was for both him and the other auditionees in his group.   
  
As they practiced their routine and he struggled to keep up and understand what he was supposed to do, he remembered the smiling faces of his mother and sister as they had waved him off to his audition and wished him good luck, and he knew that if he didn’t get this right, then he would be letting them down, and that worried him far more than letting himself down. He had given them enough cause for worry in his life, and they didn’t need any more.  
  
He worked harder and hard, giving it all, while trying to ensure everyone else was giving their all as well, but much to his frustration that F was still hanging over his head at the end of the session. As the other boys moved to the side to get drinks and chat amongst themselves, Koyama nervously headed over to their dance coach at the other side of the room.  
  
“Please… I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. Please give me some advice,” he begged. The dance coach smiled, seemingly seeing that fire in his eyes to succeed, and led him back onto the dance floor to go over the moves one more time one-on-one.  
  
“Try it now,” the coach told him, and Koyama put all his effort into perfecting those moves he had just been shown how to do, aware that the coach was standing there watching his every move.   
  
When he finally reached the end of the routine he was hot and exhausted, sweat running into his eyes as he looked at the dance coach with hope in his eyes.  
  
He saw a smile. “Tomorrow, you’re in group A.”  
  
Koyama’s own smile didn’t leave his face for days. Perhaps Koyama Keiichiro could do something right for himself and his family after all.  
  
  
  
 **“What makes you think they need you to worry about them that much?”  
  
“That’s exactly what they always say to me.”**  
  
  
  
“Don’t you just feel sometimes like you’re lost in the middle of the big sea?” Shige said to Koyama one day only weeks after their debut the first time they were given a hotel room to share. They had just settled down into their beds and turned off the lights and it was if Shige hadn’t been comfortable deepening their previously light-hearted conversations when the other could see his face.  
  
Koyama turned over so he was facing towards Shiges bed, even though he couldn’t see him. “Not really,” he replied, his voice heavy with drowsiness.  
  
“Just me then.”  
  
Koyama hesitated for a moment. “A lake, maybe,” he admitted after a drawn out silence.   
  
Then the silence continued, both of them taking in each others and their own words. Koyama’s mind was racing.  
  
Eventually, Shige finally ended the silence “I don’t think they like me.”  
  
“Who?” Koyama shifted his position again, half sitting up and leaning on his elbow. The words felt like a heavy weight in his chest even though they weren’t coming from himself.  
  
“Everyone,” Koyama heard Shige reply, and he could hear the other’s voice becoming strained as if his friend was on the verge of tears. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up properly, and stared across at him in the darkness.   
  
Koyama had never really thought about whether other people liked him before, but having the other mentioning it made him begin to wonder. His chest tightened a little, but this wasn’t the time to suddenly express his own worries. “I like you,” he said simply. He wasn’t just saying it to be nice, he really meant it.  
  
“Even if no one else likes me, will you always like me?” Shige then asked him.   
  
The younger boy sounded so scared and vulnerable in that moment that Koyama stood up from his bed and carefully stepped closer to the other’s bed, hearing it creak slightly under his weight as he sat down close to Shige’s quilt covered body.  
  
“I’ll always like you,” Koyama confirmed. For a moment, it was on the tip of his tongue to ask the other if he would always like him too, but he quickly realised it didn’t matter. So long as he could always like Shige. When he leaned in to give the crying boy a comforting hug though, he felt like he needed it just as much as the other did.   
  
  
  
 _“Why did you do that for me?” the boy asked his sister one day.  
  
An amused smile came to her face, and she told him bluntly, “because you were boring.”  
  
“Thanks a lot.”  
  
“I wanted you to push out and do something on your own, something great. You know you're going to be great some day, don't you? Everyone will love you and you'll be surrounded by fans and friends. I know it. No more holding onto mom's hand. This is just for you.”_  
  
  
  
Koyama's eyes were always on everyone else as they rehearsed. The choreographer's gaze would suddenly fall on him and he would know then that he had copied someone else's moves again instead of doing his own. “I'm sorry,” he told him one afternoon, as he tripped over Yamapi's foot because he was looking at Tegoshi instead of looking what move he should be doing next.  
  
“Keep your eyes on me,” the choreographer told him firmly, when Koyama's eyes wandered to Tegoshi again.  
  
“I'm just checking they're all doing okay,” Koyama told him.  
  
“You need to worry about yourself,” he was told, but as soon as eyes were off him again, his eyes turned back to Tegoshi. The younger man seemed to be struggling, he thought, and he frowned as his the other ended up in Ryo's spot and was accidentally pushed out of the way as Ryo too moved into the same place.  
  
“Watch what you're doing,” Ryo told him a little harshly, tired from the day like everyone else, and Koyama leapt to his defence as he saw a sorrowful look in the other's eyes.  
  
“We're all learning right now, mistakes happen,” he spoke calmly, always the peacemaker.  
  
“Well tell him to learn a little more quickly, or actually get here at the same time as everyone else,” Ryo huffed and headed off to get a drink as their choreographer called out for them to take a break.  
  
In the very short time Koyama had known Tegoshi he had figured out that the younger member was tough and didn’t often take things personally, but Koyama also knew that Tegoshi was on the receiving end of harsh words from several people that day because he had been late for their rehearsal. Koyama, never the kind to get mad at anyone, had kept well out of it but even watching it had been bad enough.   
  
As everyone else went in their own directions to take their break, Koyama stepped up to Tegoshi who was alone in the middle of the room practicing his routines alone. “You need a break too,” Koyama told him, holding out a bottle of water to the younger boy.   
  
“I was late so I should catch up,” Tegoshi replied as he kept on with his moves.   
  
Koyama placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “You need to take a break,” he told him again. “Why were you late?” he asked softly, and Tegoshi seemed taken aback by the gentle tone.  
  
‘I was practicing alone upstairs,” Tegoshi admitted, and finally stopped, taking the bottle from Koyama. “I wanted to become better so I thought I’d practice a little, I didn’t know we were starting already, and now everyone is mad at me…” The frustration was obvious in his eyes, and Koyama could tell despite his eyes dampening, he was trying hard not to cry.  
  
Leading Tegoshi to one of the tables in the room, he sat him down and then pulled up a chair himself. “They’ll have forgotten about it tomorrow,” Koyama told him reassuringly.  
  
“I’m going to quit,” Tegoshi told him defiantly.   
  
Koyama nodded slowly. “Then lets quit. I’ll go back to failing at my education and you can go home and get beaten to death by your mother.”  
  
A weak smile shone through the tears that were beginning to trickle down the younger member’s cheeks.  
  
“We have to fight,” Koyama said to him, “and one day we’ll be great.”  
  
“I’ll be great,” Tegoshi almost repeated the other’s sentence but missed out one vital part. Koyama patted him on the shoulder and gave him a nod. He - like Tegoshi it seemed - wasn’t overly confident that he could become ‘great’ himself, but if he could do his very best to make Tegoshi, Shige, and whoever else needed it great, after all those years of needing his mother and then his sister to look after  _him_ , then wasn’t that a form of greatness in itself?   
  
“Thank you, Koyama-san,” Tegoshi told him politely as he wiped the stray tears from his cheeks. Koyama decided he quite liked to hear that thanks.   
  
  
  
 **“Tegoshi is always confident, always fighting for himself, for everyone else. He never seems to worry about anything.”  
  
“So you feel like you have to do that worrying for him?’  
  
“Doesn’t someone have to?”**  
  
  
  
 _The scenery rushed by the boy as he sat on the train, just like it did every day, and just like every other day, he saw barely anything of it because his head was in his hands and he was spilling tears from the corners of his eyes.  
  
He exited the train, walked out of the station, made that familiar route back to his home and he kicked his uncool bag through the door of his family home and slammed the door behind him.  
  
“What did the bag do to you?” his mother asked as she peeked out of the kitchen to greet her son’s arrival home from school.  
  
“I hate it,” the boy said as he wiped at his eyes, a few stray tears still in his eyes. “I’m going to quit.”  
  
His mother sighed. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard this. She put her hands on his shoulders. “You can quit if you want, but what will you do next?”  
  
“I don’t know,” the boy replied honestly. “But I’m going to quit!”  
  
His eyes were blazing with anger as he looked at his mother, and she moved her hands from his shoulders and pulled him into a hug instead. Hugging your mother wasn’t exactly cool, but it was certainly no less cool than that silly bag he had to carry to and from school, and so he slid his arms around her waist.  
  
“Just know that no matter what decision you make, I will love you just the same.”  
  
The boy blinked a little against her shoulder. The thought had never even crossed his mind that it might affect her feelings for him if he made a bad decision, and it was the first time she had ever specifically said that.  
  
“Promise?”  
  
“I promise,” she told him genuinely in return, but at that moment he realised that he needed to consider other people’s feelings, and worry about those feelings._  
  
  
  
“Due to recent events, we’ve made the decision to suspend the group’s activities for now.”  
  
Koyama was numb, and it seemed like he was the only one. No one dared speak out to ask what “for now” meant, but it also seemed like no one was under the impression this was simply going to be a temporary thing. They were dismissed from the meeting, and while Ryo and Yamapi headed off together - most likely to drown their sorrows along with their ex-members - Massu disappeared quickly without a word, and Tegoshi and Shige spoke in hushed tones in the corner of a corridor, Koyama stood in the middle of the long corridor, not entirely sure where to go or what to do.   
  
Amongst all of his own insecurities and worries about whether he was doing well, NEWS had been like a home to go back to and know that he was fine just because he was surrounded by them and even if he wasn’t the best singer or the best dancer or the coolest it didn’t matter because there were enough other people there that it was easy to hide. Now he was just Koyama Keiichiro and if he was honest, he had never much liked that person.  
  
Lost momentarily, he felt panic welling up inside him and he looked across to two of his remaining group mates (if they were even a group any more) sitting in plastic chairs and not knowing what to do with themselves either. He instinctively stepped over to them and sat himself in an empty chair beside Shige.   
  
“Are you okay?” he asked them both, trying to dissolve his panic and turn it into concern instead. He was met with looks from both of them, Shige looking like the world had just ended, Tegoshi trying so hard to look tough and confident but not quite managing to make it reach his eyes. They both nodded, but Koyama knew they like him, would be lying if they said they were.  
  
“We can get through this,” he told them, forcing confidence into his voice. “We can fight, and one day, we’ll be back.”   
  
Amongst everything else in their eyes, Koyama saw the slightest bit of hope enter them, and he knew his job wasn’t over but this was just the beginning. If he could continue to bring that hope out in other people and make sure they were okay even if he wasn’t, then perhaps he could grow to like himself just a little bit more.  
  
When he finally made it back to his family home, he headed straight for his room and flopped down onto his bed, breathing in the scent of freshly washed quilt. He turned onto his back and pulled his phone from his pocket and he sent quick messages to each of the remaining members of the group, asking them if they were okay and reminding them that if they needed to talk about it, they were welcome to come to him.  
  
Finally, he sent one more message, to ex-member Uchi Hiroki who he’d always been close to despite their physical distance. “ _I’m sorry if I let you down. I should have been there for you more often. I hope you’re doing okay._ ”  
  
With all his messages sent, he dropped his phone onto his bedside table and collapsed into a flood of tears against his pillow.  
  
  
  
 _“Is it safe?” the boy asked unsurely as he hopped over the tiny gap between the walkway and the plane entrance.  
  
“Very safe.” His mother’s voice was comforting and reassuring but he still wasn’t really convinced. They had made paper airplanes at pre-school one day and although they had sailed gracefully into the air for a few moments, soon they had come crashing to the ground. He couldn’t work out how this big plane was any different.   
  
He tightened his grip on his mother’s hand with one of his own, his other arm wrapped securely around a plush toy cat that had been given to him a couple of weeks earlier. As they sat down in their seats and his mother let go of his hand to deal with their baggage, both arms wrapped around the cat instead.  
  
“Keep me safe,” he whispered to the stuffed animal as he looked out of the window, wishing that ground out there would never go away._  
  
  
  
The plane was already bustling with people by the time the members of NEWS stepped down the aisles. They were heading to Taiwan to begin a leg of their tour, and the reason for their lateness was down to one of their members in particular, who still hadn’t arrived.   
  
Koyama sat himself down in an aisle seat beside a window seat he reserved for their absent member, Tegoshi Yuya. Koyama knew that whichever seat he chose would probably be wrong because Tegoshi always wanted what other people had, but he wasn’t about to stand and wait around.  
  
Koyama had never gotten used to taking flights, no matter how many times he’d taken them now. He always had in the back of his mind those paper airplanes and their habit of hurtling towards the ground.  
  
“Did you know that you’re more likely to die in a plane crash if you’re sitting near the front,” Massu commented as he settled beside Shige.   
  
Koyama’s eyes went to the seat number on his ticket. 8B. “We’re going to die,” he said.  
  
“Only if the plane crashes,” Massu pointed out. “Statistically there’s only a 2% chance. Of course this is increased when there is a thunderstorm - which there is right now - but that still only brings it to 5%, so as long as the pilot is fully trained and slept fine last night, and as long as there are no technical faults and as long as no one has a bomb, I’d calculate that we have a 90% chance of getting to LA safely.”  
  
“90%? What happened to the other five?” Koyama asked worriedly.  
  
“I just saw the pilot. He looks pretty rough.”  
  
Koyama was about to further voice his worries, but they were interrupted by a familiar voice nearby.  
  
“Excuse me, sorry. Excuse me, I’m really sorry. Excuse me. Thank you. I’m sorry.”  
  
Tegoshi’s voice sailed down the aisle along with the man himself as he made his way past people trying to push their bags into the overhead compartments. When he finally made it to his other group members, his face broke into a grin. “Good morning~!” he spoke cheerfully, pushing his own bag into the compartment above the seat Koyama had taken.  
  
“I’m surprised it’s not afternoon already,” Shige muttered.  
  
“We’re all going to die,” Koyama fretted.  
  
Bag away, Tegoshi immediately clambered over Koyama into the empty space by the window, stepping on feet and knees and almost colliding head on with his group mate before he finally made it into his seat. He spread out his legs and got himself settled and left Koyama with a lot less space than he’d had before. “I’m tired, Kei-chan,” he informed the other, a slightly whining tone to his voice.   
  
Koyama was gripping hold of the arms of his seat as the plane was finally beginning to make its way over the runway to get into position to take off. He was in no position to really take in what Tegoshi was saying to him, but he did notice when Tegoshi’s head was suddenly pressed against his chest and he felt his arm being maneuvered over the other’s shoulder. “Tegoshi, what are you -” Koyama started, but stopped when he felt Tegoshi raising the centre seat arm so he could inch a little bit closer.  
  
The engines of the plane became louder and as the speed increased and they got closer and closer to taking off, Koyama’s arm tightened around Tegoshi’s shoulder and he found his other arm automatically moving to complete his hold. The tension began to leave his shoulders a little, and as the plane began to rise up into the air, he tightened his grip just a little more. It seemed like Tegoshi had used all of his energy making his way to the airport so late, and had quickly fallen asleep.   
  
Koyama had never been able to sleep on planes, but holding onto Tegoshi as he slept he remembered those times when he was young and would hold onto his plushie for the whole flight. “Keep me safe, Tegoshi,” he spoke quietly under his breath, and he wondered how anyone did this alone.  
  
  
  
 _“Why don’t you go and play in the water?”  
  
“I’m fine out here.”  
  
“It’s okay to be scared.”  
  
“I’m not scared.”  
  
“Then go ahead.”  
  
“I want to stay with you.”  
  
What was so fun about playing in the sea all on your own, anyway?_  
  
  
  
It wasn’t rare, but Koyama’s mind was overloaded with worries and questions as he sat in his apartment staring at the contract on the table in front of him.  
  
 _What if I’m no good? What if I screw up and everyone just laughs at me? What if the show loses ratings because I just can’t do it? What if I’m so hopeless that the agency doesn’t want me any more?_  
  
He could barely hold the pen that was in his hand. Technically, all he had to do was sign the contract and take it with him to a meeting arranged for the next day, but as yet he hadn’t even managed to put pen to paper. His mind was filled with thoughts about what this meant for him. Striking out on his own, without the safety of the other members of his group. As someone who had grown up surrounding himself amongst the safety of others, this was the hardest decision he’d ever had to make. What was so good about doing something alone, anyway?  
  
He set the pen down on top of his pile of papers, and reached out one hand for his coffee and the other to his television remote. The silence was only making him think even harder, so he turned on the television and flopped back on his couch, his shoulders aching from leaning forward staring at his contract.  
  
Glancing towards the screen, he came face to face with Sakurai Sho, his confident face filling the screen and the  _News Zero_  logo in the corner of the screen.   
  
 _If he can do it, then so can I._  
  
With sudden renewed strength and courage, he leaned forwards again and picked up his pen, and then he heard Sho begin to speak. With the voice, all of Koyama’s new found courage flowed right back out of him.   
  
 _How can I follow in those footsteps?_  
  
The pen dropped back down on the table and all he could do was watch Sakurai Sho as he delivered the perfect report, and he was overwhelmed with pressure and self doubt. He stared at the screen, Sho’s face slowly turning into his own and the voice becoming nervous and stuttered, making mistakes, letting himself down. He grabbed for the remote and hit the power button with shaking hands, and flopped back again, and he felt like his whole body was shutting down, Sho’s voice was going round and round in his head and his heart was pumping so hard in his chest that he felt like it was going to burst right out. It wasn’t the first time, but it didn’t stop him from feeling like he was going to die.  
  
On the arm of the couch beside him, his phone beeped. He forced one hand away from his face and glanced at his phone through blurred vision, seeing Shige’s name on the screen. He gripped hold of the phone and put it to his ear and pressed what he hoped was the right button, and he immediately spoke into the receiver. “Shige… S-shige, I can’t, I can’t do it,” he stuttered, each word feeling like it was being forced from his throat as he struggled to keep the phone in hands drenched with sweat.  
  
There was silence on the other end of the phone, not even breathing. He pulled the phone away from his ear. Shige had never been there at all. Just a text message.  
  
“ _Good luck tomorrow! Just be Kei-chan, and you will do great!_ ”  
  
His finger hovered over the button to call Shige’s number for a moment, and then he put his phone down on the table. He shouldn’t bother Shige, not over something like this. He shouldn’t bother him over _anything_.  
  
He read over the message a few times, and then he covered his tear-stained face again to try and calm himself down. Shige was right, as always. He could only be himself, and while he wasn’t convinced at all that being himself was enough to make things great, he tried hard to get the thought into his mind that he couldn’t do any more.  
  
Pen finally went to paper, and once he had scribbled a shaky signature on the line, he folded up the contract and slipped it back into the envelope before he could change his mind.  
  
  
  
 _“I have something important to tell you.”  
  
The boy set down his bowl of miso soup and looked across the table at his mother. She looked and sounded serious and a worried frown crossed his forehead. “W-what?” he spoke unsurely.   
  
“You know that me and your father both love you and your sister a lot, right?”  
  
The boy nodded, but said nothing.  
  
“And you know that we always will do.”  
  
Another nod. The boy’s heart was pumping.   
  
“Well from now on, your father will be living in a different house.”  
  
The boy was silent still as he took in this information in, his eyes becoming damp. “He doesn’t want to stay with us any more?”  
  
His mother shook her head. “You know recently we’ve had a lot of arguments? Well, this means that we won’t have them any more.”  
  
The tears started to roll down the boy’s cheeks as his fists clenched a little in a mix of anger and anxiety. “I don’t care if you have arguments, I want you to both live here!”   
  
Pushing his chair back away from the table, the boy stood and ran from the room, the sound of feet slamming angrily against the house’s staircase as he made his way to his bedroom._  
  
  
  
“Good morning everyone~!”   
  
Tegoshi breezed into the meeting room two minutes before the planned start time of the meeting; even when coming from home, it seemed like he couldn’t get there on time. He set his bag down on the ground beside his chair and took a seat, pushing the sunglasses that were over his face onto his forehead and peered at the others in the room.   
  
“So, what’s going on~? A new single?” Tegoshi asked hopefully.  
  
“We wouldn’t have an emergency meeting for a new single,” Koyama fretted. As much as he hoped it was something as simple as that, there was a deep sinking feeling in his stomach that he couldn’t seem to get rid of.   
  
The clock moved another minute, and with one minute until the start, the door opened once more, and the final two members of NEWS, Yamapi and Ryo, entered the room followed by their manager. Koyama tried to meet all of their eyes as they came in, and it may have been his imagination but it seemed like they all tried their best not to look at him or anyone else.  
  
“I’ve been causing the members a lot of trouble, I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot of activities with Kanjani 8 recently, and because of that I’ve been late or missed meetings and rehearsals, and honestly, because it’s been so tiring I haven’t been in high spirits and because of that… I’ve made the decision to leave NEWS and focus on Kanjani8.”  
  
The group around the table couldn’t hide their shocked expressions. Despite knowing that Ryo had many difficulties with keeping up with both groups and even though there had been talks that perhaps it wasn’t working very well any more, it seemed none of them had expected this.  
  
Koyama had gone white. “I… I’m sorry.”  
  
Ryo finally met his eyes. “Why are you apologising?”  
  
“I didn’t see it. I didn’t know things had gotten that bad.”  
  
“It’s not your fault,” Ryo told him and Koyama tried to take the words into his heart but they didn’t make it past his brain before disappearing again. Koyama spotted Ryo glancing at the group’s leader sitting beside him and Yamapi stood up from his chair. Suddenly he couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes either.  
  
“I also have an announcement to make.”  
  
The metal legs of the chair squeaked against the hard ground as Koyama pulled back his chair and stood up. His mind was already rocked from Ryo’s sudden announcement and the thought that there was soon to be another one that he already knew was going to be just the same was too much for him to handle or react professionally to right now.   
  
The door slammed, and Koyama was gone, almost blindly down the corridor, not really sure where he was going but just wanting to find somewhere he could be alone and not be a bother to anyone else. He spotted the sign for the bathrooms up ahead and quickened his pace, slamming the door against the inner wall as he entered and finding the nearest cubicle to hide in.   
  
Only when the door was finally locked behind him, did he finally let his emotions free. He sat on the toilet lid, head in his hands as tears began to flow from his eyes and his heart started to feel like it was about to break right out of his chest.  
  
He barely heard the door opening, only realised someone else had entered the room when he saw a shadow under the space between his cubicle and the one next to it.   
  
“... Massu?” he questioned, as he heard something familiar in those cries. “Are you okay?” he asked, an instinctive question even though it was clear he wasn’t. He wondered if any of them were. Massu didn’t even reply with words, but Koyama could hear the other man’s breathing becoming even more laboured and frantic.”Massu, you need to breathe.”  
  
Koyama stood up, almost stumbling into the door, the whole cubicle spinning in front of his eyes as he sat himself down on the ground and pushed his hand through the gap at the bottom of the wall. “Take my hand,” he said. He was struggling himself, but he tried to force himself to speak normally to at least stop Massu from potentially having him to worry about too.   
  
He felt Massu take hold of his hand with his own, which was damp with sweat, and felt him squeezing it like they were on the edge of a cliff and it was the only lifeline he had.  
  
“We need to fight,” Koyama said, hoping that Massu wouldn’t notice the quiver in his own voice. He felt like he was going to die here in this cubicle with the other dying right on the other side of the door.  
  
There was silence on the other end as Massu seemed to be working up the breath to speak any more. “How many more times do we have to fight?”  
  
With those words, Koyama recalled all the bad memories of the last time they’d to go through this, losing members of their precious groups, suddenly finding themselves with uncertain futures. He wondered where Tegoshi and Shige were and if they were okay, if Yamapi and Ryo were okay and if they were angry with him for running out on the meeting like that, and the feeling that there were so many people he needed to help deal with this was overwhelming to him. Massu was already here falling apart, he wondered how Shige would deal with this? If even Tegoshi could remain strong this time?   
  
He kept hold of Massu’s hand, keeping his grip strong and confident despite that he was falling apart inside himself. He shifted himself from his seated position and lay down on the hard floor of the cubicle, in an attempt to stop the room from spinning so much.  
  
“Are you okay?” Massu asked, clearly feeling the movement under the wall.   
  
“I’m fine,” Koyama replied. Speaking just those words was a huge effort, but he continued. “Just keep hold of my hand. And keep breathing.”  
  
  
  
 **“Massu... Massu is someone who knows what it’s like to worry. We’re the same in that respect.”  
  
“So if you try hard enough, you can take some of those worries from him and give them to yourself instead?”  
  
“It sounds simple when you put it that way, doesn’t it?”**  
  
  
  
“Kei-chan, wake up.”  
  
Koyama heard the voice piercing into his mind, and his eyes flickered open. He was lying on his back on an unfamiliar couch and as he got his focus back, he spotted three pairs of worried eyes staring back down at him.   
  
He reached up one hand to brush away a few strands of hair that were irritating his cheeks and before he reached his forehead, he hit something covering his mouth. The day started to come back to him, he remembered the feeling of the cold ground of that toilet cubicle underneath him, and then he remembered Massu’s hand in his own. He shifted his hand a little. The other hand was still there.  
  
“Massu?”  
  
“I’m here.” One of the pairs of eyes moved a little closer to his face.  
  
“Are you okay?” Koyama asked. The sound of the other’s struggled breathing and his tears came into his mind.  
  
“You’re asking me? One minute you were telling me to breathe and the next you went quiet.”  
  
“It was hot in there, I just passed out I guess,” Koyama told him. He used his free hand to push against the couch and sit himself up. He didn’t even feel bad lying, not right now. He didn’t want to cause any more worry.  
  
A firm hand pushed against his shoulder. “What’s the rush?” Shige’s voice.   
  
“I need to go home,” Koyama told him, and despite protests, swung his legs round the couch and set them on the ground. The world spun a little more. “I need to feed the cat.”  
  
He stood up, and pulled the oxygen mask that had been set over his face off and tossed it onto the couch. He then used his hand to steady himself against the arm of the couch.   
  
“You’re worrying about your cat right now? Kei-chan, worry about yourself,” Tegoshi scolded him and it seemed weird those words coming out of their youngest member’s mouth. Koyama always saw Tegoshi as the kind to worry about himself more than anyone else, as much as he knew that underneath he really did care.  
  
“I’m fine,” Koyama told them stubbornly, and he was beginning to get a little overwhelmed by the attention. He wished they would just worry about themselves and leave him be.   
  
Shige gave a deep sigh and put his hand on Koyama’s shoulder again. “At least let me drive you home.”  
  
Koyama nodded. He didn’t have the energy to argue any more. "Are Yamapi and Ryo okay?"   
  
Shige nodded. "Fine," he confirmed, as he led Koyama away from the two other worried group members and out of the building.  
  
  
 **“How does it make you feel when people worry about you?”  
  
“Like I’m the most bothersome person in the world.”**  
  
  
  
 _Lying on his bed on his back, headphones over his ears, the boy was oblivious to everything other than the music flooding into his ears. It was a good way to relax, after homework and dinner were over with, and with the school year passing and the stress increasing it was just what he needed.  
  
His eyes were closed, but the light shining onto his face from the lamp on his bedside table suddenly dimmed a little. His heart leapt and he opened his eyes suddenly.  
  
Rummaging through his things on his desk, his sister looked like she didn’t have a care in the world as she picked up a pen and examined it.  
  
“What are you doing?!” the boy asked in annoyance as he pulled the headphones from his head.   
  
His sister turned round. “I just wanted to borrow a pen.”  
  
“You should knock before you come into my room!”  
  
“I did, idiot, you had your headphones in.”  
  
He supposed he couldn’t argue with that. “Well stop coming in my room! Get out!” _  
  
  
Koyama had almost forgotten what it felt like to sleep. His days were a blur of crying in his apartment and going to the convenience store in a zombie-like state to buy instant noodles that were always then either forgotten in his kitchen floating in cold water, half eaten or not even opened.   
  
On the days he had to work, he would force himself up and into his car and spend the day with that Koyama Keiichiro idol smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, not able to say anything to the staff because there had been no official announcement and not wanting to either because what did they do to deserve having him push all his problems on  _them_.  
  
The other thing that took up a lot of his non-work time was calling and messaging the other remaining members of NEWS to check that they were doing okay, or to wish them good morning or goodnight or anything to ensure he was still connected to them and that he was sure they were doing alright after their devastating news.  
  
He had fallen asleep on his couch with his cat Nyanto lying on his stomach, when he was suddenly aware, even in his sleep, of someone in the room. Nyanto was gone from his stomach as well. He jerked awake and stared upwards, meeting two brown eyes looking back down at him. He yelled out.  
  
“Chill, Kei-chan, it’s just me.” Shige’s voice.  
  
“What are you doing in my apartment?!” Koyama sat up suddenly, and immediately regretted it. His neck ached from lying in an odd position.  
  
“Well you did give me a key.”  
  
“For emergencies!”  
  
“You weren’t answering your phone.”  
  
“I was sleeping!”  
  
“So I see.”  
  
Koyama sighed. “Are you okay?”  
  
“I’m fine. It’s you I came to check up on.”  
  
“I’m fine too, so you can leave now.”  
  
“Are you sure -”  
  
“Leave, Shige, please. And give me back that key.”  
  
Shige made a point of pushing the key deeper into his pocket. “Fine, I’ll leave. But this stays with me.”  
  
“Fine,” Koyama sighed, and lay back down, turning over to face the back of the couch. “Lock the door on your way out.  
  
He didn’t want to push people away, but he didn’t need the concern.  
  
  
  
“We want you to go to New York for a report.”   
  
Meetings with the  _News Every_  staff had become more and more of a blur to him over the past few weeks. Doing work on his own now felt a lot more lonely than it had done when he’d had the other members of NEWS to go back to when it was over, but this time he didn’t have that luxury.   
  
He was tired, and anguished, and if he was honest, the last thing he wanted to do was travel to another country and do a report, particularly not on a topic that was so big and would require so much emotion and concentration on his part. Going to New York for a report in September, there was only going to be one thing to report on, and Koyama wasn’t sure he could deal with that.  
  
“Sure, I’ll do it.” There was less hesitation than he had even expected himself, but Koyama Keiichiro didn’t say no. He didn’t let people down. He  _tried_  not to let people down. If he had let his precious group fall apart around him and then let down the staff of his news show, what would that make him?  
  
Two days later he was taking those nervous steps onto the plane without the security of the rest of NEWS around him. I wasn’t the first time he had flown abroad on his own, but as with everything else, it seemed different this time.   
  
As the plane lifted into the air with that roar that frightened him every time, all he could do was hold on tightly to the blanket he had been given and hope that he would arrive safely.  
  
  
  
It was ten at night by the time Koyama finally unlocked his hotel room and flopped down face first on the large comfortable bed in the room. His coworkers had been staying out even later but he just couldn’t do it any more and had made his apologies and taken a cab back. He breathed in the scent of the fresh fabric of the pillowcase pressed against his nose, and before he knew it, it was starting to become wet with his tears.  
  
He’d drunk more than he probably should have done in the hope that it would numb some of his feelings, but as he sobbed into his pillow, he knew it had only made it worse. He forced himself into a seated position and eyed the mini bar underneath the desk in the room, and despite knowing it probably wouldn’t help, he opened it up and pulled out a couple more bottles of beer.  
  
As he opened up the bottle and began to take long desperate gulps of the liquid inside, he picked up his phone with his other hand. He frustratedly messed around trying to connect his phone to the hotel’s wifi, his drunken state, tear-filled eyes and shaking hand making it more difficult than it should have been.   
  
He let out a sigh of relief when it finally connected and reached for another bottle of beer as he opened up his email on his phone and waited for it to download his new mails. However, after a couple of minutes nothing had arrived. He shook the phone, and then he clicked refresh and there was still nothing. He stared down at the phone which, over the course of the day he had used to send many messages that had received no reply.   
  
Loneliness suddenly washed over him. He’d been in New York for two days and it seemed like he had been forgotten already. Was this how it was going to be from now on? He wanted to know that the rest of his group were okay back in Japan, and he also wanted to know that they still wanted  _him_ , and the thought that either of these things might not be okay started to cause a familiar feeling of panic to overwhelm him.   
  
He gripped his phone tightly in his hands and tried to type out a mail with his shaking hands, sending a whole message of nonsense to Shige because his fingers weren’t hitting the right keys. And with the message sent, he set an empty bottle down on the table beside his hotel bed, and flopped down against the covers again.  
  
 _Over 1000 people died when -_  
  
Koyama was a professional. He practiced his reports and he researched them himself, and right now though his spinning mind he could hear his own words being repeated back to him in his head. What right did he have to be upset about people not messaging him back when some people didn’t have those people to message in the first place.  
  
He checked his phone. His inbox was still sitting at zero and he couldn’t even think about the fact that it was probably too early for anyone to reply, or that they may be busy working. The loneliness was overwhelming. He slipped his phone into his pocket.  
  
 _We’re really big NEWS fans._  
  
That was the next thing that came to his mind. Standing on the streets of New York waiting for the cameras to be set up and waiting for the stylists to fix his hair, even at the other side of the world fans were finding him. It hadn’t been a bad thing, seeing them there with their big smiles and their excitement as they posed by him for a photo, it wasn’t a bad thing that he’d spotted that they were even wearing the group’s goods and that he’d had to point it out to a staff member nearby. After the encounter, he’d been full of smiles and had completed his report without a worry in the world, had called his mother after shooting had finished and told her proudly that he had fans all the way in America.  
  
But thinking about it now, with his mind hazy and depressed with alcohol, didn’t that just mean that this divide between the group and their uncertain future was just effecting even more people than he thought?  
  
He gulped down the last quarter of his bottle, and went for the mini bar again but there was nothing left inside. Closing the door, he reached for the phone by his bed to call down to the reception. “Hi, I’d like -” he started, but he couldn’t finish his sentence because a sudden feeling of nausea came over him and he had to put down the phone and race to the bathroom. That was the last thing he remembered about that night.  
  
At 6am the following morning, he was woken by the alarm on his phone sounding. Opening his eyes, he discovered he’d been passed out on the hotel bathroom floor all night. His head hurt, and he was stiff, and he reached into his pocket to turn off his alarm. With the alarm turned off, one thing was left in the middle of the screen.  
  
 _You drunk-messaged me last night. But that aside, I watched your report! You did great, Kei-chan._  - Shige.  
  
  
“Yo.” It seemed like a long time for Koyama since he had last heard that voice and even muffled from being spoken through his apartment’s monitor he recognised it immediately. It wasn’t exactly like he had been avoiding his friend, in fact he had messaged him every day but it was easier to hide his own feelings through text and so he had to admit, he hadn’t really made the effort to see him in person.   
  
Koyama glanced around his apartment as he began to head towards the door and it was like having a surprise visitor appear suddenly made him realise what a mess his apartment was. He grabbed a couple of empty bottles and a few half empty instant noodle containers and tossed them in the trash before he finally unlocked the door and opened it to greet Shige.  
  
“You’re a mess,” Shige told him bluntly as he stepped past him into the apartment. “And so is this place. Do you need me to get Massu over here to clean it up?”  
  
“No. No, it’s -”  
  
“Good, because I’m not sure he’d survive the shock.”  
  
Koyama wobbled a little at the knees. He wasn’t entirely sure of the last time he had slept and having Shige barge into his apartment suddenly like this was a little too much.  
  
Shige eyed him, and then stepped up to his side, setting a firm hand on his shoulder. “Sit down.”  
  
“Shige, I’m okay.”  
  
“Do I have to push you?”  
  
Koyama obeyed, and took a seat on his couch, watching tiredly as Shige took a seat down next to him.  
  
“Tegoshi says we have to fight.”  
  
“You’ve spoken to him? Is he okay?”  
  
“Tegoshi is always okay,” Shige replied flatly. “It’s not him I’m worried about.”  
  
“I don’t want you to worry about me.”  
  
“Tough,” Shige told him firmly, and then let out a sigh. “Kei-chan… people are starting to talk.”  
  
“Who is?”  
  
“Massu said you’ve sent him 50 messages in the past two days. 200 in the past week.”  
  
“He counted?”  
  
“It’s Massu, of course he did. But that’s not the point. Tegoshi said his phone hasn’t stopped beeping either. Neither has mine. You need to stop, Koyama.”  
  
Koyama looked up when he heard Shige calling him by his surname. He almost never did. “I’m just worried about all of you.”  
  
“You need to worry about yourself.”  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
“You’re sitting - in the dark, I might add - surrounded by -” he picked up one of the half empty cartons of instant noodles, which smelled a little funny. “- things. While you’re sitting there on your phone sending us all messages, everything else is going to hell. Seriously Koyama, why is this still here?” He waved the carton in the other's face, giving him a good look at it as well. “It's starting to grow things.”  
  
Koyama stared into the carton for a moment as if he hadn't been looking at them all around him for the past god knows how long. He was a little run down and couldn't smell anything weird about it, but in that moment it was like he realised the situation he was in. “I wasn't hungry,” he said a little pathetically.   
  
“And on Monday? Tuesday? Wednesday and Thursday?” Shige asked, pointing to more half empty cartons strewn about as if they all had the days written on them.   
  
“I’m sorry, Shige.”  
  
“What are you apologising for?”  
  
“I don’t want you to be worried. That’s not your job.”  
  
“Yeah, I know. My job is to be the one everyone laughs at because I act like I’m an old man and I can’t play sports and I can’t sing properly. But back then you said you would always like me regardless, and you did, and it’s time I repaid that by showing you how much I like you back.”  
  
“I don’t want you to worry about me,” Koyama said again.  
  
“You’re about ten years too late for that. We need to fight, Koyama.”  
  
Koyama felt those words he had said to Massu coming back to him, the same thing, the same tone, and Koyama felt just as unconfident with the words as he had when he’d used them himself. “How many more times do we have to fight?” He spoke the words like he was speaking them in Massu’s voice, and looked the other in the eyes.  
  
“Until we win,” Shige replied, and Koyama nodded despite the sinking feeling inside. Shige was fired up, or at least trying to be for his sake, and he couldn’t help but try and infect himself with some of that spirit.  
  
  
  
 **“I know Shige better than I know anyone else in the world.”  
  
“So because of that, you know when you need to be worried about him?”  
  
“If only I could turn it off.”**  
  
  
  
Koyama had spent almost the entirety of the past week in his apartment, but ventured out when he decided he should make the effort to go and see Tegomass performing their tour. Shige’s words to him had gone some way to putting some fight back into him, and sitting around inside wasn’t doing him any good at all.   
  
He was nervous about seeing the success of their fellow group mates alone, but it was less hard than he thought it would be once he started watching them enjoying themselves on stage. No matter what was going around them he knew how important it was to put on a good show for the fans, and it was nice to see the smiles on the other’s faces even when he couldn’t smile himself.  
  
Then, everyone’s faces changed. The faces of the fans, the faces of his two friends on stage, and finally, his own face. Koyama knew as well as anyone else that Massu and Tegoshi had always worked hard to keep Tegomass and NEWs two separate things, but as the two stopped on the centre stage, the introduction to  _Sakura Girl_  began to play and by the time the song had finished Koyama was in tears but that wasn’t what he was focussing on. On the monitor above the stage, Massu and Tegoshi’s faces showed up close, and Koyama could see that he wasn’t the only one who had been moved.  
  
The moment the concert finished, Koyama pulled his phone out and sent a single message to Massu and Tegoshi.  _Lets do this._  
  
No one else was going to help them out of this, except themselves. Except  _him_.  
  
  
  
“I’d like to be the leader.” Koyama’s voice was strong and confident as he leaned forward in his seat around the table with the rest of NEWS, his group. Inside though, his heart was pumping loudly in his chest and his hands were locked together underneath the table, hiding sweating palms and a small quiver. As soon as Koyama had gotten the ball rolling by sending them those messages, he had gathered them all to meet so they could discuss this properly before putting it to the agency.  
  
Tegoshi looked up and peered at him across the table, raising an eyebrow. Koyama knew what Tegoshi was thinking. After the departure of their previous leader, and everyone praising their youngest member’s leadership skills, people had it down as a certainty that it would be him who would become NEWS’ new leader. If he had wanted it, that was. Which he didn’t. Tegoshi was a back-seat leader, but Koyama knew better than anyone that he didn’t want that kind of responsibility officially.  
  
“If you become our leader, that means you have to pay for all of our meals,” Tegoshi told him in a matter-of-fact tone. There were two nods of agreement from the other two in the room.   
  
Koyama gave him a half-glare across the table. “I pay for your meals anyway.”  
  
“Well, then you can’t complain about it any more,” Tegoshi shrugged, and there was a sly grin on his face.  
  
There was only a momentary silence before Koyama gave a nod, and his glare turned into a smile. “Deal,” he spoke with a nod.   
  
Shige, Massu and Tegoshi all insisted on shaking on it. His palms weren’t sweating any more, the shaking was gone.  
  
It was nice to feel needed again, that was all.   
  
  
  
In his new fired up state, Koyama was up and out of bed at 7am the morning after their little meeting where he had been crowned leader, waiting for the time he knew their manager would be arriving at the office, impatiently holding his phone waiting for 7.59 to turn to 8, hand ready on the call button.  
  
The time finally came, and he pressed the phone to his ear and listened to the dialing tone, his heart jumping as the phone was finally picked up on the other end. “Good morning! It’s Koyama Keiichiro here. I wanted to speak to you urgently. We’ve come to a decision. We want to continue as four members.”  
  
After his enthusiastic greeting and revelation, he silenced to listen to the reply from his manager, anxiously waiting for the go ahead to start planning for a comeback. It wasn’t the first time it had happened and he knew how these things worked. “Uh huh. Okay. Right, I see..”  
  
The phone dropped from his hand, and the call cut off mid-conversation. He stared down at the phone accusingly as if it was to blame for the conversation he’d just had, and then picked it up and threw it against the wall.  
  
 _The agency isn’t convinced that it’s worth the trouble any more. It might be too hard to come back from this. We’ll meet tomorrow to discuss the future for you four._  
  
As the phone lay there on the ground by the wall, Koyama’s fists were clenched and he was brewing up with anger and anguish and pain, everything falling apart around him. He had known it would be hard, like last time, to come back bigger and better than before, but the thought that the agency, who he’d put all of his life and soul into for the past ten years, didn’t think that he, didn’t think that NEWS was worth it any longer, was devastating.   
  
He forced himself to his feet and stepped over to his phone, reaching down and picking it up in his shaking hands. Despite the smash against the wall, it was still working and his fingers moved to his inbox. Inside, the emails he’d received in reply to his determined message sat there, read many times previously to give him the courage to make that call.   
  
Now all they signified to him was failure. The others had counted on him, to get this started, to get them back on the stage together where they belonged.  _Good luck, leader_ , Shige had told him simply.  _You can do it_ , a message from Tegoshi read.  _NEWS will return!!!_  Massu had added.   
  
He had put himself forward as their leader, confident that he could do anything, and now it was all coming crashing down around him. He went through his phone and he deleted all of those encouraging messages; just knowing they were there was making him feel ill.  
  
What he really should do was call them and tell them the news, inform them of the meeting. As leader, that was his responsibility. But what he did instead was turned off the power to his phone and pushed it into a drawer where he couldn’t see it. He didn’t want to face this.   
  
His mind was spinning, and so was the room, and it was beginning to cause an ache in his head, so out of that same drawer he pulled out a packet of painkillers and took the recommended two pills.  
  
"We're doomed," he spoke to himself as he wandered through to his kitchen. He remembered everyone tell him that he and they should fight.  _Until we win_ , Shige had said. But wasn't there a point when there was no use in fighting any more. Wasn't this that point? His head throbbed with trying to think it all through and make sense of all of his thoughts, butt really made sense to him and he decided the best thing he could do was try and forget.  
  
He couldn't forget. An hour later despite losing count of how many drinks he'd had, his thoughts were still racing and his head was still throbbing. He stumbled over to that closed drawer and tugged it open again, pulling out his phone.  
  
 _I heard about the meeting. It looks like it could be bad news. But let's fight until the end._  - Tegoshi.  
  
"I can't fight any more," Koyama spoke to the phone, and then noticed he also had 6 missed calls from Shige. He imagined Shige sitting there calling him over and over and getting no reply and he wondered if his friend was worried.  
  
He ate the phone back in the drawer. "You don't need to worry about me, Shige. I'm fine," he slurred, and he was too drunk to think about how weird it was to say that while he was there unable to stand straight without the aid of a wall.  
  
Rubbing his forehead, he closed his eyes for a moment but it didn’t stop the pain in his head and then he spotted the packet of pills he’d taken from earlier and picked it up. His vision was blurred from drink and tears and his headache and he soon gave up trying to read what was on the packet when he just wanted the headache gone already.  
  
He popped out one of the pills from the packet and swallowed it with the help of the only liquid he had nearby, his most recent half empty bottle of beer, and in his drunken state he was so annoyed that the headache didn’t immediately disappear that he took another one.   
  
And another one. And with the headache still not magically going away, two more. Eventually he wasn’t even sure if he was trying to numb the pain of his headache or numb something else entirely.  
  
Ignoring the sense of danger of what he was doing, and his headache seeming to get worse rather than better as well as all of the other pain he was feeling, the packet was soon empty. He shook the box, and then threw it down when he realised nothing was left and his head was still hurting. He downed the rest of his beer, and then stumbled through his apartment to the bathroom.   
  
He didn’t recognise the figure staring back at him from the mirror, which had broken down in tears and was holding his head, trying to cure his headache and stop the room from spinning.   
  
Back to the living room he went, and he pulled his phone from the drawer. Four more missed calls from Shige. Did the other need him that badly?  
  
He fumbled with the buttons until he managed to call Shige’s number and the dialing tone burned into his brain as he waited for the other to answer. His spare hand was shaking but keeping him steady against the wall, as the room seemed to almost be completely tilted.  
  
“Shige,” he spoke when the dialing tone finally ended, “Shige the room is upside-down,” he slurred and then he remembered why he had called. “Shige, are you okay? I’m so sorry I didn’t answer, I was -”  
  
He didn’t finish his sentence.  
  
As he fell, he brought down the whole chest as he tugged on the open drawer on his way down, and drawers and their contents rained on him as he landed on his side after hitting his head on its corner on his way down.  
  
From the phone line, a worried voice spoke his name, but Koyama didn’t hear it.  
  
  
  
 **“So what about you?”  
  
“Me?”  
  
“That’s why we’re here, after all.”  
  
“Koyama Keiichiro is… nothing special.”  
  
“Not worth worrying about?”  
  
“No one ever really listens when I tell them that.”**  
  
  
  
“Are you okay?!”   
  
Koyama almost forgot that he was on stage in the middle of a concert when he heard Tegoshi’s microphone hit the ground a moment after he did. His scared screech echoed round and round the arena as without hesitation he began to dash down the walkway towards where the other man had fallen.  
  
He was halfway towards his group-mate when Tegoshi hopped back to his feet like nothing had happened, and confirmed that he was fine with a chuckle that told Koyama the other thought his reaction had been ridiculous. “It’s my job to worry about you,” Koyama muttered, forgetting again that he had a microphone close to his mouth.   
  
The fans yelled about how cute he was, and how nice it was that he worried for his fellow group members. If only they knew, Koyama thought to himself as Tegoshi left the stage. Very little had been mentioned to the press or to the fans since Koyama’s hospital stay some months earlier. He had emerged, eventually, and apologised to the fans for making them worry, but only his family and the other NEWS members their manager, as well as a select few friends knew of the turmoil that he had been through since his release from the hospital and what he was still going through now.  
  
Shige gave Koyama a weary glance and lowed his microphone. “Not any more,” he told him, his voice low, and Koyama closed his eyes for a moment just to forget everything for a moment, and to try and remember the words he had been told.  
  
 _“They’re strong. Remember that. They’re doing just fine on their own. No one can take the weight of the entire world on their shoulders.”_  
  
His heart pumped still with the worry of Tegoshi’s fall still on his mind. A minute or so later, Tegoshi was back and it was his turn to leave the stage to go and get ready for his solo.  
  
Sitting backstage in his new outfit, he tried to calm down his heart beat. Tegoshi had fallen. Massu was getting sick and Shige seemed to be trying to hold everything together for all of them to try and keep the pressure off him.   
  
He closed his eyes, focussed on his breathing, and then the staff called for him to head back to the stage. He took a deep breath, and as he heard the other members on stage announce his arrival and rush past him down the steps, he stepped up in front of the fans to be the Koyama Keiichiro they loved,  _their beautiful rain_ , to quote his own solo, and then afterwards he would go backstage and check that Tegoshi hadn’t hurt himself in his fall, make sure that Massu still had enough energy to go on, and that Shige was holding it all together.  
  
 _“One day, you’re going to be great, Koyama Keiichiro.”_  
  
For a few moments, standing on that stage singing to his fans, he felt like he had achieved that goal.  
  
 _A burning thought was just for a moment  
It’s now vanished._  
  
But even if he couldn’t be great, he could make sure everyone else was.  
  
“Are you okay?” he asked Shige as he passed by him backstage after finishing his solo.  
  
Shige let out a heavy sigh. “Just go and get changed,” he told him. And all Koyama could do was what he was told.


End file.
